I was just reading this blog http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/over ... dvice/8319 that talks about a healthy living campaign. In fairness to the campaign, a "Healthy Living" campaign of this magnitude and reach needs to be consistant with official guidelines and it is. It would be really irresponsible to say anything else. It's all well and good for Jimmie Moore and others to provide their opinions but Jimmie Moore doesn't write policy.

The real problem is with the official guidelines and it doesn't look like it's getting any better.

This report is the one that sets the future direction of the official guidelines and government policy in the US and therefore much of the world. Take a read through the executive summary and right from the start the focus is on reducing sugar and saturated fats. They even have an anacronym (SoFAS) for it. That means that it's impossible to separate the two in any meaningful discussion. For someone to suggest that saturated fat may have beneficial effects would be blasphemy.

Translating and Integrating the Evidence: A Call to ActionComplementing the Total Diet chapter, this chapter describes the four major findings that emerged from the DGAC’s review of the scientific evidence and articulates steps that can be taken to help all Americans adopt health-promoting nutrition and physical activity guidelines:
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Reduce the incidence and prevalence of overweight and obesity of the US population by reducing overall calorie intake and increasing physical activity.
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Shift food intake patterns to a more plant-based diet that emphasizes vegetables, cooked dry beans and peas, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. In addition, increase the intake of seafood and fat-free and low-fat milk and milk products and consume only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry, and eggs.
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Significantly reduce intake of foods containing added sugars and solid fats because these dietary components contribute excess calories and few, if any, nutrients. In addition, reduce sodium intake and lower intake of refined grains, especially refined grains that are coupled with added sugar, solid fat, and sodium.
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Meet the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

This tired advise is what got us into the state we're in now and this guidance is further entrenching it to the point that it's become a religion.

Sorry for the rant. Don't ask me about drug companies.

Edit: The big problem is that much of what they say is in fact true, it's just over simplified. "refined grains that are coupled with added sugar, solid fat, and sodium" is a deadly combination. This is also know as donuts. This is bad. However solid fat (saturated) is not bad on it's own or with protein. This is known as meat. This is good.

Much advice is designed to get sick people to be not sick but is insufficient to get not well people well. Of course not well people are more likely to become sick people than well people are so you'd think that that might be important.

If people actually followed that advice, I don't think we'd be so bad off. Certainly not as good as eliminating most grains in the diet altogether, but the government overlooks one important fact- taste. Grains, beans, low fat dairy, and veggies, to most people, taste like crap. So we have to enhance their taste with sugary toppings for the most part. Take baked beans for example- I love them, but eating two servings is usually around 25-30 grams of sugar. Spreading jelly on a slice of toast= same effect.

If I remember right, the guidelines said something about a minimum of 1 hour of exercise *A WEEK*

This is WAY too low. I think a sedentary lifestyle with the conveniences of modern technology is more responsible than crappy food for making people fat.

Adult obesity rates have increased 48 percent between 1988 and 2008; 72 percent in the case of teenagers and children (source) and if anything, there's been a huge spike in demand for health food since then.

Ricky wrote:If I remember right, the guidelines said something about a minimum of 1 hour of exercise *A WEEK*

This is WAY too low. I think a sedentary lifestyle with the conveniences of modern technology is more responsible than crappy food for making people fat.

Adult obesity rates have increased 48 percent between 1988 and 2008; 72 percent in the case of teenagers and children (source) and if anything, there's been a huge spike in demand for health food since then.

What does that tell you?

It's still diet. It got a lot worse in those years. Burning some energy exercising is nothing compared to the massive increase in insulin from the increase in processed foods. Having a warehouse full of merchandise does you little good without trucks to distribute it to your stores. Insulin is like the trucks. Things don't go from intestine to fat stores by magic. It's not an automatic process.

Exercise isn't going to keep you from gaining weight so much as enhance weight loss while on a proper diet.

Those solar winds are carrying with them the ability to cause a climatic change to melt the polar ice caps and cause hurricanes all over the globe. There is also a life threatening virus that kills quicker than the bubonic plague. And if that's not enough, those are aren't killed by the virus will be turned into zombies and the winds will signal to their alien creators that this planet is ripe for the taking. That enough for ya Ironman?